In general, large retail stores have multiple departments or centers, each designed to provide related products or services. The types of departments or centers include: a grocery center, a tire or auto center, a pharmacy center, an event ticket center or kiosk, a DVD rental or purchase center or kiosk, an eye care center, a travel center, a banking center and others. Each center or department may have one or more self-service terminals or kiosks used to schedule or purchase products or services for the specific center or department wherein they are located. For example, a Pharmacy center kiosk has functions that include allowing a customer to request a refill or check the status of a prescription. A tire and auto center kiosk has functions that include allowing a customer to schedule an oil change, tire rotation or other vehicle service. An event ticket kiosk has functions that include allowing a customer to purchase a ticket for an event. A grocery center has multiple self-checkout or assisted checkout terminals where a customer can purchase items.
In each of the above examples, a customer using a terminal or kiosk will identify themselves as they perform a function specific to the retail center where the terminal is located. However, software performing a function for one retail center is not aware of a customer's actions or history performed at another retail center. For example, the specific software application that allows a customer to identify and purchase an event ticket is not aware of the status of a prescription being refilled and would not be able to add the cost of the prescription to the cost of a ticket allowing the customer to make a single payment for both. This and additional problems exists for applications performing specific functions in other retail centers. Because there are so many current functions (e.g., purchasing tickets, refilling prescriptions, scheduling service, etc.) and additional functions are being added from time to time, the software that performs a single specific function cannot easily be designed to support and provide all the functions that maybe provided by the different retail centers in a retail store.
Thus, a need exists for a low cost platform and method that integrates the loosely coupled functions and services of each retail center and makes them available on all of the different terminals and kiosks.